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Sunday, 27 April 2014

WD My Passport Ultra - Memory/Storage Devices

Hello everyone!
Today I am here to share my views about a good External Hard Disk - WD My Passport Ultra. I have used a 1 TB drive to share my views.

WD: Western Digital Corporation

Western Digital Corporation (often abbreviated as WDC or WD) is one of the largest computer hard disk drive manufacturers (along with Seagate Technology) in the world. It has a long history in the electronics industry as an integrated circuit maker and a storage products company. Western Digital was founded on April 23, 1970 by Alvin B. Phillips, a Motorola employee, as General Digital, initially (and briefly) a manufacturer of MOS test equipment. It rapidly became a speciality semiconductor maker, with start-up capital provided by several individual investors and industrial giant Emerson Electric Company. Around July 1971, it adopted its current name and soon introduced its first product, the WD1402A UART.

WD sells many hard drives with warranties of either one, two, three, or five years included in the retail price, but it offers the customer the option of purchasing a longer (two- or three-year) warranty on its web site. Three years is the current industry standard and while Seagate Technology (a competitor) used to offer a 5 years of warranty for all its drives, it recently moved back to a one-year warranty for its bulk (bare/OEM) consumer-level drives. They also have a replacement policy, where you can replace a broken product with a new one up to 30 days after purchase.

High performance Raptor drives as well as the Caviar Black Series and RE Series still come with a five-year warranty.

Packaging

The packaging is really good. You can see the images I have uploaded here. The outer box is really good quality cardboard. The inner box is also of very good quality. It is transparent plastic on one side and white opaque on the other side. The compartments are well made to store hard disk, wire, manual, etc.

I still keep the hard disk in that inner box. I really didn't need to buy a case for the hard disk since the inner box is quite sturdy.

What's inside the box?

1

WD My Passport Ultra

2

Wire (Backward Compatible USB 3.0)

3

Manual

4

Pouch

Pouch

The WD My Passport Ultra Hard Disk comes with a nice looking pouch. The cloth is of okay quality, but well you are getting something! :P Don't worry it doesn't look as bad as my photography makes it look. The pouch looks quite nice and you would like to carry your WD My Passport Ultra hard disk in that pouch.

Looks

The hard disk looks superb! Really, it is slim, light weight and the design on the body looks pretty cool. Built in an ultra-sleek and stylish design, the WD Passport sports a slim 15.4 mm thick body that makes it extremely convenient to carry it around. The device bears a sturdy body that is designed to last in order to keep your data safe.

Dimensions: 15.4 x 110.5 x 82 mm

Capacity

The WD My Passport Ultra External Hard Disk is labelled 1 TB. Although the computer understands this as 1024 GB (or 1024 x 1024 MB), but the manufacturers give (1000 x 1000 MB) as 1 TB. This is the reason why you get something around 965GB in a 1 TB hard disk. Technically, the drives are labelled using the "decimal definition" of 1000 bytes to the kilobyte, resulting in a perceived capacity shortfall to those used to the "binary definition" of 1024 bytes to the kilobyte, which is how most operating systems report capacity.

While more and more movies, games and shows load your system, this WD Passport Ultra is here with 1 TB of storage space to let you comfortably store all your media and personal data. Just imagine, 1 TB is just too much!

Speed

Experience blazing speeds with the USB 3.0 interface that lets you transfer data at up to 5 Gbps while the USB 2.0 interface transfers data at a maximum of 480 Mbps. But that's the interface speed not the data transfer speeds to be precise. I have taken screenshots of the lowest read speed and maximum write speed I have experienced with WD My Passport Ultra External Hard Disk.

Test

Maximum Speed

Minimum Speed

Average Speed

READ(USB 3.0)

77.8 MBps

33.6 MBps

55.7 MBps

READ(USB 2.0)

40.4 MBps

20 MBps

30.2 MBps

WRITE(USB 3.0)

30.1 MBps

7.8 MBps

18.95 MBps

WRITE(USB 2.0)

15.6 MBps

3.9 MBps

9.75 MBps

Bundled Apps

The portable hard drive features the WD SmartWare Pro backup software that lets you use Dropbox to back up to the cloud or back up to the drive itself directly. The device comes with the WD SmartWare Pro automatic backup software that helps protect your data and keep it all safe by creating instant backups. With the WD Security you can password protect your data and also add hardware encryption for your drive to help keep your data private.

Wire

Integrating both the USB 2.0 as well as the USB 3.0 connectivity options, the hard disk can be connected to all your USB 2.0 devices to transfer data. The USB 3.0 takes you to the next generation and lets you connect and transfer data at ultra high speeds. The WD My Passport Ultra External Hard Disk is USB powered and you don't need external power to make it running.

The wire quality is very good, though the wire is quite short. You can only attach it to your laptop. If you wish to attach it to your computer's back-USB ports, you have to keep your hard disk on the CPU cabinet only since the wire is quite short. But that's the case with every External Hard Disk. The wire is around 45cm in length, and though it is short, it is quite sufficient. Why I made contradictory statements? Well the wire is actually short, but since you should keep you hard disk stable and don't really need to roam around with it while it's connected (I assume), the wire length is sufficient.

Price

The hard disk is mostly sold in a price range of 4000 INR to 5000 INR (~65.964 USD to 82.45 USD). I cracked a deal at 3800 INR. So I'd say if you get a deal in the slab of 3700-4300 INR, the deal is totally worth it. The hard disk is really good, the design is awesome, and WD is a trustworthy company; so, that price range is really a good deal.

Warranty

The WD My Passport Ultra Hard Disk comes with a 3 year limited warranty. You can check the WD support pages for more info.

Verdict: 4.5/5

I have already said, no room for 5/5 for any device! :D So I am giving my maximum 4.5/5 to this hard disk. It looks good, the design is amazing, WD is a trustworthy brand, the speed is really awesome, and the hard disk is a winner with all those bundled apps in all the domains, be it price, or performance! So as I said, if you get it in a range of 3700-4300 INR, don't think twice before buying the WD My Passport Ultra Hard Disk.

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